


Dress

by ashitanoyuki



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Character Study, Other, Princess Prom (She-Ra)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 20:59:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 505
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18724885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashitanoyuki/pseuds/ashitanoyuki
Summary: Scorpia never got to feel feminine.





	Dress

She’d always had short hair.

  
When she was little, she tried to grow her hair out. But it would catch on the spikes of her shoulders, pull terribly, make her cry. Knots would form, and brushes and combs sat awkwardly between her claws, making her hair impossible to detangle. And so she kept her hair short. Sometimes, she'd stare at the other princesses, the ones who could keep their hair long and flowing. She wasn't jealous, per se, but she wished she could have long hair like them. Maybe then they wouldn't tease her so much. “Prince Scorpia,” they called her. Maybe it was funny to them. To her, it just hurt.

  
And then her family joined the Horde, and the opinions of the other princesses didn't matter anymore.

  
With the Horde, she kept her hair short because it was practical. Long hair was just a weapon the enemy could use against her – loose hair would hang in her face, and a ponytail was just another handhold. She kept her hair short, and when she donned her armor, she told herself she didn't miss her dresses.

  
(If she taught herself to apply lipstick with a tube held carefully between her claws to compensate, well, who said that had to mean anything?)

  
She skipped the first All-Princess Ball she was invited to. Something in her clenched at the idea of surrounding herself with pretty, feminine princesses with long fancy hair and beautiful dresses while she lingered in the background, plain and unassuming, dressed in armor with her shorn hair simultaneously standing out and rendering her invisible.

  
And then Catra came into her life.

  
Catra, wild and untameable. Catra, who turned her insecurities into rage, into action. Catra, who would never stand to let a princess make her feel inferior – who in turn would not let any princess make Scorpia feel inferior. And the invitation to her second All-Princess Ball came.

  
“I guess I'd better find one in my size,” she joked when Catra donned her suit.

  
Catra even deigned to look her in the face this time as she scowled at her. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “You'd look stupid in a suit. Go find a dress or whatever.”

  
And…

  
Scorpia had never thought to look through the Horde supply area for DRESSES.

  
The first few looked wrong, even she could admit that. Too fluffy, too frilly, one even too pastel. And then she found it – the perfect dress. A sleek black number, slit up the leg, a dress that would easily allow her to accessorize her jeweled red heat bombs. Her heart beat hard as her claws caught on the large zipper at the back, drawing the dress closed.

  
It fit perfectly.

  
Scorpia had short hair. Lipstick was the only type of makeup she could manage with her unwieldy claws. She would never be the perfect, feminine princess she longed to be deep down.

  
But looking at herself in the mirror, wearing that dress, she couldn't stop herself from crying.

  
She looked beautiful.

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if the formatting is weird, I wrote and posted this on my phone.
> 
> Here, have me taking my issues with gender presentation and twisting them until I can fit them onto a character I love. (I'm decidedly not feminine but Scorpia rocked that dress despite not being "feminine" in her everyday presentation, wearing armor and whatnot, so here. Have my garbage.)


End file.
